The Modern "Nation-State"

Because of globalization, there have been many issues raised on how the relationship of the state and nation. Some say that globalization has lead people of different nations to be non-nationalistic, to an extent that people love nations other than their own. This says many things about the culture, history, and politics of a state.

As I stated in my previous blog, "Restricted Movement of People", you can think of a state as a family, and its inhabitants or citizens are its family members. If a family member knows "how great" another family's situation is, it will make that family member think that his or her own family doesn't do well and might even hate his or her own family. With this perspective, that family member will want to go to that "another" family but it has restrictions. Instead of loving his or her own family, he or she instead will want to go to that family that do better than his or her own. That is one of the reason. One of the reasons could be on the culture or even acceptance. Of course, everyone, even animals, insects and any other living thing, has preferences. Even in large scale, people will prefer one over another. Although it is natural for human beings to have preferences, there are problems associated in this. First, restrictions of other countries should always be respected. Just like in my analogy, you just can't barge in in someone else's family. There are borders and legal procedures that have to be honored by an individual. Going back to the Nation-State, cultural borders are not limited anymore because of globalization. With mix of different cultures, people tend to forget about their past and not understand their own identity which lies on where an individual came from and/or grew up. Apparently, it is important for a state to retain its own culture by doing all the preservation methods that it can use. Globalization has all its advantages, but also has disadvantages. A state took part in globalization at their own risk of mixing other cultures to their own and also sharing their own to the world. Now, in this situation, the prevailing cultures will be of the more prosperous economies because of their market share in the global trade, making other nations know about their culture. For example; the restaurant industry is one of the most saturated market in the world. With all the different kinds of restaurants, people have an idea about the culture of a particular country. In a Japanese restaurant, they serve tea and Japanese food of course. Some restaurants even have small readings about their home country and culture.

To summarize everything I want to say regarding the nation-state relationship; a state has to take care of its people and preserve its oneness in order to maintain order. If a state stopped being a nation, then it will have a problem on identifying its own identity. Unity has to be preserved by the state always, or else there will be chaos inside the state's territory. On the other hand, international organizations promote oneness or unity between states. With a somewhat "individual-ness" of each state, uniting all the states would be a difficult task. Because of clashing cultures and/or differences, wars are inevitable.

Environment and Global Politics

With all the shows, movies, and documentaries portraying and presenting all the adverse effects of global warming to our planet, especially the 'Inconvenient Truth' which is written and starred by Al Gore, environmental concerns have spread globally at a very fast rate. These shows made many people to be familiar with the issue of global warming and how it affects our planet. Although scientists present many scientific evidences and ways on how to reverse global warming, the people and their governments still pay almost no attention to it and take little action on solving it. It is quite ironic, isn't it? The people want to save their planet, yet they take little action on it. Some say that the culprit of all these is 'carboniferous capitalism' with all the carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases produced by all the different corporations around the world, especially oil companies that have oil refineries which produce so much carbon emissions. At this rate, all the trapped greenhouse gases in our planet will eventually destroy our ozone layer, which protects us from harmful sun rays and etc.

Some people claim that there are safer products and environment-friendly ways to produce those products. By environment-friendly, what do they mean by that? Are they really sure that it is not a work of capitalism as well? How sure are they that it is really 'environment-friendly' as they claimed those products to be? What are the products that are good for our environment? Are there really such? Who is any one to say what is good for our environment? I think the issue is not about our world 'dying', but the condition getting worse for HUMANS. It is not that the Earth is dying, but turning into a hostile environment for human beings. It has always been about human beings. It is always about 'us'. We are programmed to be selfish. We think that our race, the human race or homosapiens race, is the most superior race in this world, eventually making us think that we can do 'anything' we want in 'our' planet. The fact that people are not doing something about global warming tells that human beings are so selfish that they are 'busy' doing what they want, or pleasuring themselves, instead of taking action on an issue so important to them. On the other hand, some people claim that the root cause of climate change is the slow shifting of the Earth's polarity. As time goes by, the North Pole and South Pole change their positioning, leading to drastic climate change as we know it.

To wrap it all up, global warming is a complicated issue. After all, it is not only the humans that are affected by this phenomenon but also all the other different species. When all these changes have stabilized, we might all be surprised that the human race has survived and has adapted with all other new species that have adapted as well. If Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution is true, then other species that adapt fast will get to survive these conditions. At this rate, other species that adapt slowly to rapid change of weather conditions and other hostilities will most likely die and go extinct.

Territorial Division

Ever since, there has been prevalence of territorial disputes, which most of the time end up in violence. Distinguishing territorial borders is one of the essentials of a state. If a state doesn't have a specific territory, how can it practice its sovereignty properly? Who are its people? Just like a residency; you specifically state the borders of your house, which is your territory, so that people will know where your area of responsibility is and who to find or who talk to when there is an issue on that particular area. So, in that analogy, are you willing to just let anyone go in your residency? Are you comfortable to let a total stranger come in your residency or house? I'm sure you are not. This is exactly the same in the world's division of territory. In a deeper sense, countries have established their territory in order to exercise their sovereignty and identify its people, which exactly are essentials to a state. Expansion of territory is another thing. Now, regarding this matter, people literally fight for their territory, either for expansion or for protection. Violence is usually the medium of states to fight for territory. Why? Territorial claims are not just about expanding their area of responsibility, but also the resources of a particular area. Way back in time, territorial expansions are prevalent. One of the largest empires, the Roman Empire, expanded their territory through force. They have to wage wars in order to acquire more lands and eventually possessing such empire and territory. With an empire size like that, all its political units' power goes back to the emperor, which is the head of the empire. In a relatively more recent time, the different conquests of the European powers started for them to find more resources which eventually led to colonizing different parts of the world. One of which that we are very familiar with is the Spanish colonization here in the Philippines which lasted for more than three hundred years. At that time, the Philippines were part of the Spanish territory. In present day, everyone knows about the issue about the Spratly Islands. Various Asian states are claiming that these group of islands are part of their territory; namely Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Fortunately, these states have decided to tackle this issue in a diplomatic way. If this way of diplomacy fails, all these states will wage war for territorial claims on Spratly islands because of the rumors that these islands have rich commodity resources mostly oil and gas. As much as possible, the Philippines tries its very best to maintain a very good relationship with these states and let our diplomats do their jobs to successfully clear this issue fairly, not our country's soldiers. Hopefully, after the dispute on this group of island, these different states will maintain a good relationship with each other.